


All's Fair in Love and Laser Tag

by Ms_Understood94



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: AU, All Human, Annabeth's wondering what the hell is going on, Best Friends, F/M, Laser Tag, Love Confessions, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_Understood94/pseuds/Ms_Understood94
Summary: “Don’t even think about it. Any last words, Seaweed Brain?” she asked menacingly. After a few second pause, he visibly gulped, before giving a small smile, “I’m in love with you.” The gun quite literally fell out of Annabeth’s hands. There is no way her best friend of 8 years just told her he loves her in the middle of a freaking laser tag game.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was a quick one shot idea that I had that somehow turned into 6000 words....oops.

As Annabeth strapped on her vest adorned with red light panels, she was acutely aware of someone standing behind her. By the smell of sea-salt and chocolate chip cookies wafting in her direction, she figured it must have been Percy.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Are you ready to be taken down, Wise Girl.”

It took all of Annabeth’s self-control to keep herself from shivering at his close contact. That was very much NOT a thing that best friends did around one another. Lately, she had been seeming to develop legitimate feelings towards Percy, and it scared the living daylights out of her. So she shoved those thoughts deep inside, and turned around to face the raven-haired boy.

He was standing just behind her, looking far too cocky for his own good. He was holding onto to both sides of his vest, gun dangling uselessly by his side. Annabeth rolled her eyes when she saw that _of course_ he was on the blue team.

“In your dreams, Jackson,” she replied, picking up her own gun and fake shooting him.

He pretended to be wounded before sending her a smile (which left her breathless) and heading back towards the rest of their friends who had joined the blue team with him. Annabeth, ever the strategist, called her own team together in a huddle.

“Listen to me, Percy is going to be our biggest threat. Trust me, he used to come here every week in middle school. Now, since I know how to read his laser tag moves like an open book, I will take him down. The rest of you, focus on the other members of his team and capturing the objectives. Wait until they group up, then ambush them and we’ll have an easy win.”

Piper and Jason smirked at her. Annabeth wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she had a legitimate battle plan for a game of laser tag, or the fact that she was deliberately going after Percy in the game. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.  

The worker came in looking utterly bored and began to list off the rules of the game in a banal tone. Percy kept making eye contact with her and giving her the “I’m watching you” sign. She actually had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling, which earned an incredulous stare from Piper.

Finally, the game maker released the red team into the laser tag arena first. Annabeth shot Percy a wink before rushing to her favorite sniping spot. Not a minute later, she heard a war cry as the blue team entered. As soon as Percy rushed around the corner, she shot him and dashed out of sight. He had literally no idea what hit him until she started laughing.

“I’ll get you for that Wise Girl,” he shouted above the music blaring through the speakers.

Much to Annabeth’s dismay, he took her out almost immediately after his gun came back to life.

“Oh it’s on,” she muttered to herself.

For the rest of the game, she consistently took Percy down from safe distances, allowing her team to easily capture the first objective point. Not long after, though, the blue team rallied back and captured the second.

It all came down to the third objective point, which Annabeth had just spotted Percy making his way towards. She silently crept around the walls opposite to him, scanning to confirm that none of his other teammates were nearby. Just as he stepped into the small alcove, Annabeth came in and cornered him. Her gun was raised and she managed the fiercest look she could muster on her face. Percy widened his eyes and Annabeth saw his arm twitch as if to raise his gun.

“Don’t even think about it. Any last words, Seaweed Brain?” she asked menacingly.

After a few second pause, he visibly gulped, before giving a small smile, “I’m in love with you.”

The gun quite literally fell out of Annabeth’s hands. There is no way her best friend of 8 years just told her he loves her in the middle of a _freaking_ laser tag game.

In her confusion, she barely registered Percy raising his own gun and taking her out, before easily capturing the last objective point. The siren blared indicating that the game had been won. Percy smirked at her as he walked past her still immobile frame.

“All's fair in love and laser tag,” he whispered before running over to his teammates and exchanging high fives.

 _What in the actual hell just happened????_ Annabeth thought to herself as she mindlessly exited the arena. She put her vest and gun back on the hooks in almost a trance. Luckily, her odd behavior had thus far gone unnoticed by their friends, but she was forced to snap out of when Jason came running up to her.

“What happened Annabeth?? I thought you said you were going to handle Percy!”

In a small voice she answered, “Sorry guys, he just outplayed me.”

They made their way back into the lobby to presumably wait in line for the next game. Annabeth found herself glancing in Percy’s direction approximately every 2 seconds. Did he actually mean what he said?

He couldn’t have- he basically said that it was a ploy to distract her so he could win. The real concerning thing for Annabeth was just how much it had disarmed her. Just how much she wished it were actually true.

Annabeth’s heart felt like it was falling into her stomach as she realized that he was acting no different from normal. He was joking around with Leo and Frank, never even looking in her direction. The fact that he was pretending everything was fine and dandy when he had just fake-confessed feelings of love to her made her insides feel like lead.

He stepped away from the group to head to the bathroom and Annabeth was overcome with an need to get out of the laser tag arena. Mumbling something about not feeling well, Annabeth pulled out her keys and strolled quickly to her car. As she was pulling away, she thought she saw a flash of black hair peering out of the doorway, but she quickly dismissed the thought.

=============================================================

After her phone buzzed for the 5th time in an hour, Annabeth huffed and finally picked up, expecting to see that she had been added to a group message or something.

All of the messages were from Percy.

Ignoring the simultaneous lift and drop in her spirits, she clicked into one to see what he wanted.

**[10:13] Hey how are you feeling? Piper said you were feeling sick?**

**[10:15] Really missed you in the last few games. Well I didn’t, but your team did since we kicked their butts :)**

**[10:28] Are you okay?????**

**[10:36] Can I help? Do you want me to bring you soup? Finding Nemo? A hug?**

**[10:59] Okay, well I have to go to sleep now. Hope you feel better and I see you at school tomorrow. Sleep tight, Wise Girl**

She tried, she really did, to not focus in on certain parts of the messages. But “really missed you” and “a hug” were the first words she saw anytime she looked at the texts.

She laid down on the bed, hoping to fall into a dreamless sleep, but found her mind was still racing. Tonight she had been forced to confront just how serious her feelings for Percy had gotten. Maybe she just needed a little separation from him for a few days and then she would be back to normal. Hopefully.

=====================================================================

The next day at school she tried to pretend like everything's normal, but of course Percy figured out right away that something is off. She hadn’t been avoiding him per se, but she just happened to sit near her other friends at lunch and had only given him passing hellos all day.

In every class they shared together, she would scrutinize him, looking for any hints that might give away whether or not his little confession last night had any veracity to it. Naturally, he would catch her glaring every time, and raise his eyebrow at her, only to have her hastily look away, blushing.

After her last class, Annabeth rushed to her locker, hoping she could leave school before he confronted her about it. Just as she shut her locker and turned to head to the parking lot, however, Percy rounded the corner of the hallway.

“Hey Annabeth,” he began, “what’s up with you? You’ve been acting weird all day.”

Annabeth shrugged, attempting to seem nonchalant to cover the fact that her heart was racing in her chest, “It’s just been a weird day. Still feel a bit weird from last night.”

“Do you have the flu or something?” Percy joked, taking a few steps away from.

Annabeth managed a laugh, but even to her it sounded hollow, “Not exactly.”

It was silent for a few moments. Finally, she dared to meet Percy’s gaze, and immediately saw them soften and understanding fill them.

“Hey, if this is about what I said last night in the arena, I just want you to know that------”

“PERCY! There you are, I’ve been looking all over the school for you!” Shouted Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the new transfer student to Goode High, as she started to walk down the hall towards them.

Annabeth sighed, part of her wondering what Percy was going to say, and the other part not caring. Percy turned back towards Annabeth, opening his mouth to speak again, but Annabeth cut him off.

“Yeah, I totally get it. It was just a ploy to win the game. I understand you didn’t mean it, don’t worry about it. I’ll see you later, have fun with Rachel,” she rushed out, turning on her heel before Percy could get another word in.

As she was walking away, she heard Rachel ask Percy, “So are you ready for that trip to Starbucks you promised me?”

When she got to her car, she had every intention of immediately driving home so she could dive into a book and forget about how _damn_ complicated her life suddenly was. Yet, here she was, 10 minutes later, sitting inside, still just staring at nothing.

Her mind kept drifting back to what Rachel had asked Percy as she was leaving. Were they going on a date? Rachel had transferred a few weeks ago and was immediately infatuated with Percy. She easily merged in with their group of friends, with Percy and her growing incredibly close over the last few weeks. Maybe he had started to develop feelings for her as well?

The thought made Annabeth’s stomach twist.

=================================================================

Finally, it was Friday, and if she could just make it through the day, she would have the whole weekend to be away from her friends (well, namely Percy) and get her shit together.

Annabeth had sat with Thalia, who was a year older than her, today at lunch. Luke, whom Annabeth harbored a minor crush for also happened to be sitting across from her, and she spent most of the lunch period trying to contain the blushes that kept threatening her cheeks.

With about 5 minutes left, Annabeth felt someone plop down into the seat next to hers. She was unsurprised to see sea-green eyes staring back at her when she turned to check who it was.

“Hey kelp head,” Thalia greeted, which earned a cocked eyebrow from Luke and chuckle from Percy.

“Hey Thals, I have a question for Miss Chase here, could I borrow her for a minute?”

Thalia shrugged her shoulders and said, “Fine by me, but maybe you should ask Annabeth, since she’s, you know, sitting right next to you.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes as he opened his mouth to actually ask if he could talk to her, “Yes we can chat, Perce. Lead the way.”

She followed him out of the cafeteria and into the courtyard, trying to ignore the intense stares she could feel from Piper and the rest of her friend group who she hadn’t been sitting with the last few days.

Once outside, he whipped around, concern etched onto his face.

“Hey this isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about, but why haven’t you been sitting with us for lunch?”

 _Shit_. Annabeth had hoped her friends wouldn’t think anything of it if she sat with someone else for a few days. Honestly, she just needed some separation from Percy because the boy made her heart do ridiculous things.

“Um, I just haven’t visited with Thalia and Luke for a while and I thought it’d be nice to catch up. Is that okay with everyone? I haven’t hurt anyone’s feelings, have I?” she asked, concerned.

“Oh no no. I miss… we just miss having you around during lunch is all.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and gave her a shy grin.  A few moments later she spoke up:

“So you said you wanted to talk to me about something else?”

“Right! Yeah!” he exclaimed, “So, um, Rachel invited me to go bowling with her tomorrow night and I was wondering, um, if you maybe wanted to come along with us?”

Wait, was Percy asking her to come along on his and Rachel’s date? She knew he was a seaweed brain, but there was no way he was so oblivious to not know Rachel had asked him out, right?

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Perce. I’m not so sure that Rachel would want me to come along.”

“But I want you to come with,” Percy pouted.

“But you’re going on a date with her, not with me!” Annabeth snapped.

She took a deep breath before meeting Percy’s eyes again. They were widened in surprise? Shock? She could barely even tell.

“Sorry I snapped. Listen, I hope you have an amazing time on your date, okay? You can tell me all about it on Sunday.”

Percy nodded, seeming more nervous than before and Annabeth couldn’t figure out why. Thankfully, the bell rang just then so Annabeth had an excuse to hurry out of the courtyard after a quick goodbye.

====================================================================

Annabeth fiddled nervously with the corner of her book page. She had been attempting to read for the last hour, but found her mind wandering non-stop to Percy and how his “date” was going. When the thought of the two of them kissing entered her mind, she threw her book onto her desk in frustration. Just as she rolled over onto her back to stare at the ceiling, she heard her phone ringing faintly from across the room.

She jumped up and crossed her room in record time. Picking up her phone, she was only mildly disappointed to see Luke Castellan’s name on the caller ID.

“Luke,” she answered excitedly, “What can I do for you?”

“Hey Annabeth! I was wondering if you’re busy right now?”

Annabeth laughed , “Well if you count staring at the ceiling as busy, then yes.”

Luke let out a loud chuckle, “I was wondering if you wanted to go to the mall with me? I was thinking we could pick out some gifts for Thalia’s birthday next week.

“Sure that sounds wonderful! You want me to just meet you there, maybe in the food court?”

“Yeah that works, see you soon Annabeth,” Luke finished, sounding like he was smiling.

Annabeth too was smiling and trying to calm the excited swoop of her stomach. For the moment, at least, all thoughts of Percy’s date were gone.

==================================================================

Hours later, Luke and Annabeth were splitting a Blizzard at one of the food court tables. They were laughing incessantly at the many inside jokes the two had developed over the course of their shopping, particularly while inside Hot Topic **(A/N: I love Hot Topic, I just think it would be an easy place to have a lot of inside jokes)**.

Annabeth was trying to get herself to stop laughing so she could eat more ice cream when she heard her name being called from behind her. She was shocked to see Percy making his way to their table. He raised his eyebrows at her when he saw that she and Luke were sharing ice cream.

“Hey Percy, what are you doing here? I thought you were on a date,” Annabeth asked, genuinely curious.

Percy raised his hands up, “Not a date, but Rachel just went home. I decided to stay and look for a gift for Thalia.”

Luke spoke up now, “Yeah, that’s why we’re here too. Finally found her something, even if it took us a while.”

He gave her a mischievous grin, and she burst out laughing thinking back to the pair of hot pink Barbie underwear he had picked up in Hot Topic. When she looked back to Percy she saw some unidentified emotion in his eye.

He cleared his throat, “Well, uh, I’ll be off then. Bye Luke, later Wise Girl.”

Annabeth watched his retreating form for probably far too long. Luke, unfortunately, noticed this.

“Do you have a thing for him, Annie?”

Annabeth rolled her eyes, “Don’t call me Annie. And no, he’s just my friend. I thought he was on a date tonight, but he seemed kind of out of it. Just worried is all.”

She hoped beyond all hope that Luke couldn’t see through her lies, and luckily for her, he seemed to buy the excuse. They finished their blizzard and laughed all the way home. Luke even walked her to the door and gave her a hug before leaving. All in all, it was a good day.

====================================================================

Waking up on Monday morning caused Annabeth to groan. Mondays were never fun, but she was doubly worried that she would get to school today and find out Percy and Rachel were a couple.

She took her sweet time getting ready, unconsciously choosing the blue shirt that Percy had deemed his favorite. By the time she got to school, the rest of her friend group was there. Interestingly, Percy and Rachel were standing on opposite sides of their little circle.

Shooting Percy a look, Annabeth walked up to the group. He shrugged and gave a small smile in response, which Annabeth did not know how to interpret. At lunch, Annabeth joined them for lunch, happily taking the seat next to Percy.

As it turns out, the group was planning to go to unlimited laser tag again this week. Ah, so Annabeth had a chance to redeem herself. She turned to Percy with a wicked gleam in her eye, only to see that he matched her expression.

“Bring it on,” they said simultaneously, which caused the whole table to erupt in laughter. Though Percy may have been joking, Annabeth was not. That night, she began plotting her revenge.

==================================================================

Much to Annabeth’s dismay, the laser tag group now included Rachel. Even worse, because they now had 8, and usually 4 people were on the blue team, she had to join Annabeth’s team. Rachel had insisted that she should be the one to cover Percy in these games, something about how she could ‘distract him.’

Yeah, that clearly wasn’t working. The first game, Percy just destroyed their team. The only reason the red team won the second game is because Annabeth moved through the map so stealthily that she captured all 3 of the objective points without anyone noticing.

That meant it all came down to the final game. In their per-game huddle, Annabeth finally decided it was time to assert herself- she had to get her revenge.

“Hey Rachel, why don’t you let me take Percy on this one? I have a plan that I’m pretty sure is going to work.”

Piper eagerly nodded, despite not knowing the plan, “Oh yes! Annabeth’s plans are the best. Especially when they’re revenge plans!”

Rachel agreed, and before she knew it, Annabeth was stepping into the arena. Her heart was already hammering in her chest, and Annabeth wasn’t sure if she would actually be able to follow through with it.

Each team had captured one objective, so again it came down to the last one. Annabeth crept in the alcove, thinking she had shaken Percy’s tail on her. Just as she stepped in though, he stepped through the other side, gun raised.

Before Annabeth even had time to react, he was quoting her with a shit-eating grin adorning his face, “Don’t even think about it, Chase. Any last words?”

Annabeth lowered her arms, but discreetly kept her hands placed on her gun. She started walking  forward, softening her tone.

“Listen, I know what you said last time we were here and I just wanted to tell you that I feel the same”

By now, she was just a few inches from Percy. He started to lower his gun. She just needed to stay strong for a few more seconds.

“Yeah?” he breathed

“Yeah,” she angled her gun at his chest panel and shot him, “All _IS_ fair in love and laser tag.”

Without even breaking eye contact, she lifted her gun and shot the last objective point. As the siren blared, she blew him a kiss and strutted away, already able to hear the cheers of her teammates.

Just as she was leaving the alcove, she heard Percy whisper her name in a desperate tone. Every fiber of her being wanted to turn around, but she wasn’t sure she would be able to resist the puppy-dog eyes he was surely giving her right now. Ultimately, the fear of the electricity she felt when they were standing so close drove her to keep walking.

As she stepped out into the lobby, Piper and Jason ambushed her with a hug, while Rachel stood off to the side looking indignant.

“How did you do it???” Piper asked.

“I just outplayed him,” Annabeth responded with a shrug. She turned to look towards Percy and immediately wished she hadn’t.

He was surrounded by his teammates, who were trying to ask him what happened, but he wasn’t looking at any of them. He was looking straight at Annabeth, wearing a pained expression on his face. Annabeth momentarily felt bad, but then remembered that this is exactly what he did to her last week.

Shaking aside any thoughts of regret, Annabeth strolled out to her car surrounded by her friends, relishing in her successful revenge.

====================================================================

The rest of the week was uneventful, save for the fact that Annabeth caught Percy staring at her a ridiculous amount of times on Thursday and Friday. Again, she was glad for the reprieve the weekend brought. She had just bought a new book on architecture and was hoping to binge-read it over the next few days, especially since her dad was away on a business trip and the boys were gone with Helen at a basketball tournament.

The last thing Annabeth expected was a knock on her door at 11:07 a.m.. Frustrated at the interruption, she set down her book before yanking the door open. In front of her stood Percy Jackson, wearing a sheepish smile and holding a stack of DVDs. The Little Mermaid was on top, which meant that he was here for one of his infamous Disney marathons.

Once a school year, Percy and Annabeth would watch all of their favorite Disney movies and it always ended up being one of her favorite days of the year. Annabeth waved him in and went to make popcorn while he chose the first movie.

She came back in to see the opening credits for Finding Nemo and smiled to herself. Settling on the couch, she made sure to place the bowl in between the two of them. If she got too close to him, she was honestly worried she might end up with her head on his shoulder or something. They had cuddled before, but she never really thought anything of it. Now though- she wasn’t so sure it would be meaningless to her.

After Finding Nemo, they watched Hercules, during which they always pointed out all of the factual things Disney had gotten wrong. Following that was Mulan, Annabeth’s favorite.  Finally, they got around to the Little Mermaid, which they saved for dinnertime every year.

With the bucket of popcorn long gone now, Percy was sitting much closer than Annabeth would have liked. During the starting notes of “Kiss the Girl,” she was distinctly aware that he was shifting closer. And she could feel his eyes on her.

Oh my gods, was he going to make a move on her?

She tried to calm her heartbeat and collect her thoughts, but was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. Percy seemed to jump back in shock, and returned her confused look. She wasn’t expecting anyone to stop by today, so who was at the door.

Hesitantly, she pulled the door open, only to find Luke Castellan standing on the other side. His hands were in his pockets and a smile lit up his face when he saw her.

“Luke,” she exclaimed brightly, “what are you doing here?”

“Well I know this is super last minute, but you mentioned earlier this week that your parents are out of town this week, so I was wondering if you wanted to grab dinner so you didn’t have to be alone?”

Luke actually sounded a little nervous and Annabeth found it incredibly endearing. She smiled at how considerate he was for remembering that her parents were gone before speaking up,

“Luke that is really sweet of you, but um, actually Percy is here for our annual movie marathon so I was going to stay in and finish watching those.”

Luke seemed to finally notice that Annabeth’s living room was not empty as he turned to look at Percy on the couch. Annabeth did the same, finding Percy’s gaze immediately. His face was a mixture of so many emotions that she couldn’t tell what he was actually feeling.

“Oh,” Luke sounded deflated for a moment. Annabeth jumped in before he beat himself up too much about it.

“If you wanted to grab lunch or dinner tomorrow, I’ll be around all day,” she assured him with a smile.

Luke instantly brightened, “That sounds great! Well I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy the movies, Annie.”

She rolled her eyes while she closed the door on him. On her way back to the couch she felt Percy’s eyes on her but found she could not meet them. She sat down wordlessly and started the movie again.

When the movie ended, she turned to ask him what he wanted to watch next, but he spoke first.

“Are you and Luke a thing now?” he asked hurriedly.

“What? No!” Annabeth responded, taken aback. Sure maybe she had a small crush on him, but surely they didn’t give off the impression they were dating, right? She really didn’t want Percy to have that impression.

“Okay,” Percy seemed to visibly relax, “it just seems weird that he’d show up unannounced at your house on a weekend.”

“Well you did the same thing this morning! We’re friends, just like the two of us,” she said, nudging their elbows together.

“Right,” he said.

He stood and chose the next movie for them- Lilo and Stitch- and returned to the couch, throwing an arm across the back of the couch over Annabeth’s shoulders. The rest of the night passed as usual, unless you count the fact that Annabeth fell asleep on his shoulder, but both of them would deny it happened if you asked.

====================================================================

Wednesday night meant only one thing for Annabeth’s friend group - laser tag. Annabeth was feeling extra pressure from her teammates after beating Percy out last week. The thing was, she didn’t have a plan like last week, and he certainly wouldn’t fall for it again.

Annabeth tried to act confident and hoped that she would come up with something on the fly. Meanwhile, Rachel was flirting with Percy, and to Annabeth’s surprise, Percy was flirting back. She realized that she hadn’t seem him flirt so publicly before, so Annabeth found the behavior puzzling.

For a second she considered asking him about it later, but then she realized that she really didn’t want to get into in-depth conversation about his love life with him. She shrugged it off and tried to act normally, but she had a feeling Piper could see through it.

As they were taking a pizza break before their last game, Annabeth excused herself to the bathroom. When she came out of the stall, Piper was leaning on the sink, staring at her expectantly.

“May I help you?” Annabeth questioned.

“What’s up with you and Percy? I see the way you’re looking at him and Rachel flirting. Do you have feelings for him?”she asked bluntly.

“No Piper we’re just friends,” Annabeth stated monotonously.

Piper leveled her a gaze and said with force, “Tell me the truth,”

The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them, “I think I’m in love with him.”

Annabeth quickly covered her mouth in horror. She couldn’t believe she just admitted that out loud. She was expecting Piper to be staring at her with pity, but the brunette had a bright smile stretching across her face.

“Aw you two would be so perfect together!”

“What, Piper? No this is not a good situation! He obviously doesn’t feel the same way!”

“C’mon, what makes you say that? The boy’s obsessed with you!”

Ignoring the last part of that, Annabeth decided to share what had happened at laser tag,

“Well two weeks ago at laser tag, you know how it was just the two of us going for the 3rd objective? Yeah he told me that he was in love with me….”

“HE WHAT?” Piper roared.

“But it was only part of his ploy because he shot me and then captured the objective. He obviously thinks the idea is preposterous enough that he can joke about it during laser tag,” Annabeth finished and huffed.

“Wait wait back up- he told you he’s in love with you, and you _STILL_ don’t think he has feelings for you?”

“I just said Piper, it was all part of his plot.”

“Annabeth, I know Percy and you know Percy and he really doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to just play with people’s emotions like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if the idiot was actually trying to tell you his feelings.”

Annabeth just shrugged, not really wanting to continue the conversation anymore. Thinking about her feelings always stressed her out, and she just wanted to relax tonight.

“Hey wait, what happened last week during laser tag? How’d you beat him?” Piper wondered aloud.

Annabeth flushed (much to Piper’s delight), “I, um, kind of used Percy’s ploy against him.”

“You told him you have feelings for him?!?!” Piper exclaimed incredulously.

“Not exactly,” Annabeth winced, “I may have just twisted some of the words he used.”

“Annabeth, this makes so much sense!”

Piper actually sounded excited, causing Annabeth to be confused as hell about what could possibly be positive out of what she just shared.

“Last week, he was SO out of it after that last game. Jason asked what was up and he literally just said your name. He totally feels the same way! Oh my gods.”

“Oh gods,” Annabeth replied, feeling hopeful for the first time that night. It didn’t take long for reality to come crashing down, however. Annabeth buried her head in her hands and groaned.

“What?” Piper questioned.

“Well, Percy’s out there flirting with Rachel. So even if he did feel the same way last week, it sure seems like he’s moved on already.”

“I guarantee you the only reason he’s flirting with Rachel is because he thinks you have a thing for a certain blonde-haired boy. You two are so obsessed with each other it's sickeningly adorable. One of you just has to be bold enough to make the first move.”

With that, the two girls realized their conspicuously long absence in the bathroom was probably raising some questions, so they made their way back to the group. Annabeth tried to ignore Rachel leaning into Percy as they at something on his phone.

As soon as they sat down, Jason asked , “So what took you so long in the bathroom?”

Piper looked at Annabeth with frantic eyes.

“I had a pretty bad headache, but Piper helped me through it,” she lied smoothly.

“Are you okay?” Percy asked, his voice laced with concern.

“Yeah I’m fine,” she said, giving him a quizzical look. He seemed to have completely blown off Rachel’s presence, and the redhead didn’t look too happy about it.

Turning to Piper, she saw the brunette raise an eyebrow and glance in Percy’s direction. She was pretty sure this roughly translated to, ‘See? What did I tell you?’

They finally made their way to the line to wait for their last game. It was going to be another tie-breaker and Annabeth still didn’t have a plan. It was really sheer luck that she was able to beat him out in the second game, and she knew he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

By the time they were in the arena, Annabeth’s heart was racing and she didn’t know why. Both her and Percy’s team had captured an objective, so it came down to the last one. Again. She made her way stealthily to the objective point and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was empty.

Just as she raised her gun to shoot it, Percy ran in the other side and pointed his gun at her. They stared each other down and Annabeth was reminded of an old spaghetti western.

She had just opened her mouth to make a joke about how the town wasn’t big enough for the two of them when Percy’s rushed words came out.

“So you going to make another joke about feelings and crush my hopes again?”

He said it jokingly, but Annabeth knew him well enough to detect the undercurrent of seriousness in his words. She stared at him, trying to analyze if he really meant those words when she remembered Piper’s words from earlier.

_One of you just has to be bold enough to make the first move._

Throwing all caution to the wind, Annabeth dropped her gun and strode towards Percy, not caring if he shot her. There was no hesitation in her actions as she placed her hands on both sides of his face and pulled him in for a deep kiss. All thoughts of the game left her mind as Annabeth focused on the fireworks that seemed to be exploding behind her eyes.

Percy seemed surprised for a only the briefest of moments before he too dropped his gun and wrapped his hands around her waist. They were so focused on each other that they didn’t even notice Piper come into the room and capture the objective until the siren blared.

They pulled away from each other only slightly, and saw Piper standing in the entryway with a smug look on her face.

“We won,” she said to Annabeth, “and it looks like you did too.”

Piper turned on her heel and left them in the room. Annabeth started to panic as she realized this may have all looked like an elaborate play.

“Percy,” she began, now very aware of just how close they were standing, “I promise to you that that was not part of a plan or anything.”

Percy smirked at her

“Good, because neither is this,” he breathed before smashing his lips to hers.

====================================================================

Six months later and the group of friends still goes to laser tag faithfully every Wednesday night. They’ve had to make an unofficial rule among them that there is no kissing in the arena strictly for Percy and Annabeth. They follow it…

Sometimes.

  
  



End file.
